EC announces crucial municipal body poll dates for Uttar Pradesh

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission today announced dates of crucial local municipal body polls that will take place in three phases and which will start from November 22nd.

Uttar Pradesh will have civic polls in three phases from November 22, making it the first electoral test for the ruling BJP which stormed to power in the Assembly elections with a massive mandate earlier this year.

“As per the schedule, 24 districts will go to polls on November 22, 25 districts on November 26, and 26 districts on November 29,” State Election Commissioner SK Agarwal told reporters here.

He said no central para-military force would be used for exercise, which will be conducted by the state police alone.

“Counting of votes polled for 16 nagar nigam, 118 nagar palika parishad and 438 nagar panchyat will be done December one,” he said.

Agarwal said 3.32 crore voters will be eligible to cast their ballots at 36,269 polling booths and 11,389 polling stations.

Giving phase-wise details, he said the first phase will cover 24 districts in which 230 local bodies, spread over 4,095 wards, will got to polls.

For this phase, there will be 3,731 polling centres and 11,683 polling booths with total over 1.09 crore voters.

Uttar Pradesh to witness civic polls from November 22nd in three phases:

The second phase will cover 25 districts having 189 local bodies covering 3,601 wards.

The polls will be held at 13,776 polling booths to be set up for 1.29 crore voters, he said.

In the third and last phases, 26 districts will go to polls in which there are 233 local bodies spread over 4,299 wards.

For this phase, there will be 10,810 polling booths for over 94 lakh voters.

These polls will mark the first test for the Yogi Adityanath government which came to power in March, with the BJP getting a landslide victory.

The polls would be held in three phases on November 22, November 26 and November 29, State Election Commissioner S.K. Agarwal told the media.

Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) will be used in the polls, he added.

Agarwal said the model code of conduct would be in place between November 22 and December 1.

In the first phase, polling would be held in 24 districts. In the second phase, polling would be conducted in 25 districts and in the remaining 26 districts in the third phase.

The votes would be counted on December 1st.

The stakes are high for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in these polls as it is in power in most municipal corporations, including in the state capital Lucknow.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is contesting the polls for the first time.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress which had fought the state assembly polls in an alliance earlier this year have parted ways for these polls and are contesting separately.

Apple App Store : Avast warns of 3 ‘fleeceware’ apps

Avast said its researchers installed the three apps and successfully purchased subscriptions to each app. However, when they tried to use the VPNs, the apps only provided subscription options again.

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The apps are available on the Apple App Store as Beetle VPN, Buckler VPN, and Hat VPN Pro, Avast said.

These three apps have been downloaded over 420K, 271K, and 96K times, respectively, between April 2019 and May 2020, according to data from Sensor Tower, a mobile apps marketing intelligence and insights company.

“Fleeceware apps fall into a gray area, because they are not malicious per se, they simply charge users absurd amounts of money for weekly, monthly or yearly subscriptions for features that should be offered at much lower costs,” Nikolaos Chrysaidos, Head of Mobile Threats &amp; Security at Avast, said in a statement.

The apps” all have high ratings, ranging from 4.6 to 4.8, and include enthusiastic reviews, all similarly written, which Avast considers may potentially be fake.

Avast said its researchers installed the three apps and successfully purchased subscriptions to each app. However, when they tried to use the VPNs, the apps only provided subscription options again.